The short version
- You are buying a personalized book about a surname, made by us after you order. How Your Book Is Made explains exactly how.
- Digital books arrive by email within 3 business days. Printed copies are made to order after you approve a proof.
- Every book has a 30-Day Book Guarantee: we correct it, remake it, or exchange it once. We do not refund for a change of mind; the cases where money does come back are listed in the guarantee page.
- The book is yours to keep, print and share with your family. You may not resell or republish it.
- U.S. law governs. In the United States disputes go to individual arbitration, which you can opt out of; in Canada and Australia your own courts and consumer law apply.
- We sell to the United States, Canada and Australia. Wherever you live, the consumer rights your law says cannot be waived always apply.
1. Who you are contracting with
Who you are dealing with
- Lineage & Heritage — books about family names, since 2024.
- Operated by a registered company in the United States. Our legal name, registration details and postal address are given by email to anyone who asks for them in connection with an order or a claim.
- Email: [email protected]. A person reads every message and replies within 2 business days.
In these documents, “Lineage & Heritage”, “we”, “us” and “our” mean that company. We operate online only. There is no shop and no telephone line: email is how we serve customers, and it leaves both of us with a written record. Please do not send parcels or returns by post without writing to us first.
2. Agreeing to these terms
By placing an order, requesting a free sample or report, or using this site, you agree to these terms and to the documents they incorporate (section 20). If you do not agree, please do not order.
You must be at least 18 years old and able to make a binding contract. By ordering you confirm that you are, and that the payment method is yours or that you are authorized to use it.
We sell to customers in the United States, Canada and Australia. If you order from anywhere else, these terms apply together with any consumer right of your country that cannot be waived.
3. What we sell
We make personalized books about family names: their origin, history, migrations and the armorial record associated with them. Depending on the edition, a book may include a coat-of-arms plate, maps, illustrations, facsimiles of historical records, and the account of your own family if you give it to us.
- Digital books, delivered by email as a PDF and, for some editions, as a private web page.
- Printed copies of a book (for example The Family Edition), bound and shipped to the addresses you give us.
What each edition contains is described on its product page at the time you buy. That description is part of your contract.
4. How your book is made
Your book is researched and produced by us after you order, with our own production system. It draws on public records and reference works, it is written and illustrated with the help of software that includes artificial-intelligence tools, and it is checked against its sources before delivery. How Your Book Is Made & Disclaimer sets out the method in full and is part of these terms; on the subject of method, that page governs.
5. Heraldic and genealogical accuracy
What a coat of arms is, and what our books are not.
In the English and continental European traditions, arms were granted to an individual and passed to that person’s descendants. They were not granted to surnames. There is no coat of arms that belongs to everyone who shares a family name.
What our books present is the armorial record historically associated with a surname — arms borne by documented people or families who carried that name — or, where the record keeps only a regional or family pattern, an achievement composed by us in the grammar of heraldry and labelled as composed. Buying a book does not show that you descend from any armiger and does not give you a right to bear any arms.
A book from us is a work of history and design about a surname. It is not proof of descent, not a genealogical certification, not a DNA or genetic test, not a grant of arms, and it carries no standing before any government, court, consulate, registry, church, insurer or heraldic body. Do not use it as evidence for citizenship, inheritance, immigration or any legal or financial purpose.
Historical sources disagree with one another and sometimes contain errors. Where the evidence about a name is thin or contested, the book says so. We do not guarantee that the history of a surname is the history of your particular ancestors.
6. Prices, taxes and payment
Prices are shown and charged in U.S. dollars. The price that applies is the one shown when you complete the purchase; later price changes, up or down, do not affect an order already placed. If your card is in another currency, your bank converts the charge at its own rate and may add its own fee.
Payment is taken in full when you order and is processed by Stripe; some printed orders are paid through a secure Stripe payment link we send you. We never see or store your card number.
Taxes. The total shown before you pay is the total you are charged. If we become required to collect a sales tax, GST or HST where you live, it will be shown before you pay, never added afterwards.
We may decline or cancel an order — for example a clear pricing error or a suspected fraud — and if we do, we refund it in full.
7. Delivery of digital books
We deliver your book to the email address you enter at checkout within 3 business days of your order, and usually sooner. Where an edition includes a web page, its private link is sent by email as well.
If it has not arrived, check your spam and promotions folders, then write to [email protected]; we resend it at no charge, to another address if you wish. Delivery depends on the address you gave us being correct. Shipping & Delivery has the details.
8. Printed copies
Printed copies are made to order by our printing partner after you approve a proof of your book. Before printing we confirm in writing the number of copies, any dedications, the shipping addresses, the price and the estimated delivery.
- Before printing. Until you approve the proof you can change the number of copies, the dedications and the addresses. Once you approve it, the copies are printed for you and the order cannot be cancelled.
- Damaged, defective or lost. Covered by the 30-Day Book Guarantee: we reprint and resend, or refund if we cannot.
- Addresses. We ship to the addresses you confirm. A parcel returned because an address was wrong or incomplete is reprinted at cost.
- Import charges. For deliveries outside the United States the destination country may charge taxes or brokerage fees on arrival. Unless your order confirmation says we cover them, they are payable by the recipient.
Shipping & Delivery sets out timings, carriers and customs by country.
9. Our 30-Day Book Guarantee
For 30 days from delivery, if something in your book is wrong, if it does not match what was described for the edition you bought, if a file does not work, or if it simply is not what you hoped for, we make it right at no charge: we correct it, remake it, or exchange it once for another book of ours. Our 30-Day Book Guarantee & Refund Policy sets out exactly what the guarantee covers and how to use it, and governs that subject.
10. Refunds
Every book is researched and produced for one name after you order, so we do not give refunds for a change of mind. The 30-Day Book Guarantee takes their place.
We do return your money, in full, if you were charged twice, if you were charged in error, if we cannot deliver your book, or if we cancel your order. Your money also comes back where the consumer law of your country requires it (section 18 and Our 30-Day Book Guarantee & Refund Policy). Those are the only cases.
11. Your licence to use the book
The text, research, layout, illustrations and armorial artwork in our books, and everything on this site, belong to us or our licensors. When you buy a book you receive a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, perpetual licence to use it for private and family purposes. You may:
- read it, keep it and store your own copies;
- print it, or have it printed, for yourself and your family;
- give copies to family members, show it to anyone, and leave it to your heirs;
- quote short passages, with credit to Lineage & Heritage.
You may not resell it; sell copies, extracts or derivatives of it; publish the full file where the public can download it; use its text or artwork on merchandise, print-on-demand platforms or another product; remove a copyright or licence notice; or use it to train an artificial-intelligence model. If you want to use a book commercially, write to us and ask.
If an order is refunded or charged back, the licence for that order ends.
12. Material you send us
Some editions let you send us family material: names, stories, letters, photographs or documents. You keep every right you have in it. You give us permission to use it only to make and deliver your book and its copies. You confirm that you are entitled to share it, and that living people you name or show have agreed or would reasonably expect it. We do not publish your material anywhere else. The Privacy Policy explains how we keep and delete it.
13. Acceptable use of this site
You may not scrape, crawl or systematically copy this site or the reports it produces, run automated queries against it, use it to build a dataset or a competing product, attempt to access anyone else’s book or order, interfere with the site, or use it unlawfully. We may block access where this happens.
14. Intellectual property
“Lineage & Heritage” and our logos are our trademarks. Traditional heraldic designs, surnames and public-domain records belong to everyone: we claim no ownership of them, only of our own text, arrangement, artwork and software. Records we reproduce from public archives remain free for anyone to consult, and each book credits its sources and their licences.
If you believe something on this site or in one of our books infringes your rights, write to [email protected] with enough detail to identify the work; we will look into it promptly.
15. Disclaimers
Our books are works of historical research, writing and design, supplied for personal interest. To the fullest extent the law allows, the site and our products are provided “as is”, and we disclaim implied warranties, including merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. This does not limit the guarantee in section 9 or any consumer guarantee that cannot be excluded.
16. Limitation of liability
To the fullest extent the law allows, we and our members, contractors and suppliers are not liable for indirect, incidental, special or consequential losses, lost profits or lost data, and our total liability for any claim connected with an order is limited to the amount you paid for that order.
Nothing in these terms limits liability that cannot lawfully be limited — including for fraud, for gross negligence, or under the Australian Consumer Law or the consumer protection law of a Canadian province.
17. Indemnity
If you reproduce or distribute a book in breach of section 11, you agree to compensate us for the losses and reasonable costs that this causes, to the extent the law of your place of residence allows.
18. Governing law and disputes
These terms are governed by the laws of the U.S. State in which our company is organized, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules, and by applicable U.S. federal law — subject to the rest of this section. We will tell you which State that is on request.
Talk to us first
Write to [email protected] and give us 60 days to put things right. Most problems end there.
If you live in the United States: arbitration
Any dispute will be resolved by binding individual arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association under its Consumer Arbitration Rules, instead of in court. You may instead bring an individual claim in small claims court. Claims may be brought only individually, not as part of a class, collective or representative proceeding.
You can opt out. Email [email protected] with the subject ARBITRATION OPT-OUT, your name and order number within 30 days of your first order. Opting out changes nothing else. If you opt out, disputes go to the state or federal courts located in the State in which our company is organized.
If you live in Canada
The arbitration agreement and the class action waiver do not apply to you. You may bring a claim in the courts of your province or territory, and its consumer protection law applies to your order together with these terms.
If you live in Australia
The arbitration agreement and the class action waiver do not apply to you. Nothing in these terms excludes, restricts or modifies any right or remedy you have under the Australian Consumer Law. You may bring a claim in the courts or tribunals of your State or Territory and contact your consumer protection agency.
Anywhere else
These terms do not remove any right that the mandatory consumer law of your country gives you, including the right to go to its courts.
19. If the business is sold or closes
If the business is sold or transferred, your book, your licence and any web access go with it, and we will tell you by email. If we ever close, we will give you reasonable notice by email so that you can download everything you bought. Neither event cancels your licence: the files you downloaded stay yours. Please keep your own copy of the PDF.
20. Which document applies
These Terms, Our 30-Day Book Guarantee & Refund Policy, Shipping & Delivery, How Your Book Is Made & Disclaimer, the Privacy Policy and the Cookie Policy together form our agreement with you.
- The specialist page governs its own subject: guarantee and refunds, shipping, method, privacy, cookies. Everything else: these Terms.
- Refunds of money are governed only by section 3 of the Guarantee page. Product pages, advertisements and emails describe our products and our guarantee; they do not create other refund rights. If one of them promised you a longer guarantee window or a faster delivery before you paid, you get that longer window or that faster delivery.
- Nothing reduces your rights. Nothing anywhere reduces a right these documents or your consumer law give you.
- The summaries at the top of each page help you read it; the numbered text governs.
- If two of our documents disagree, we apply the reading more favourable to you while we fix it.
21. Changes and versions
We may update these documents. Each one shows its version, its effective date and a fingerprint — a code calculated from its exact text, which changes if a single character changes. Every order records the fingerprints of the documents in force when it was placed, and we keep every version. The terms that apply to your order are the ones in force when you placed it; changes are never retroactive. Ask us at [email protected] and we will send you the version that applied to you.
22. General
If a clause is held unenforceable, the rest stays in force. Not enforcing a term once does not waive it. You may not transfer your rights under these terms, except that your licence passes to your family and heirs. We may transfer ours if the business is sold, as section 19 explains. Headings are for convenience only.
23. Contact
[email protected] — Lineage & Heritage, since 2024. Our legal name, registration details and postal address are given by email to anyone who asks for them in connection with an order or a claim.